Question for the research
What is being masculine and not masculine in Seoul?
Appearance- well groomed and looking poor, brands to represent power
Gender responsibility- protecting women
Financial responsibility
Looking after his wife and her family
Looking after his wife and her family
Competing for women
...
MAKING
Lap 2I'm making man's body shell.
Recently I am trying to how can I use it effectively in my performance.
PLAN
05/02/10 tv studio
Lap week planTopic: Defintion
-Metrosexuality
Metrosexuality describes young men who have s strong desire for a perfect apperance and these men are known as metrosexual man. Also metrosexuality is referred to as feminized masculinity.
-Origination of the term
The word metrosexuality comes from an article in The Independent newspaper, written by Mark Simpson.
-Society’s reaction
In the past, feminized men were criticized in our society.
Some people think metrosexual men are gay. Actually some parts are true, but this does not apply to all metrosexual men.
-Examples of metrosexuality
A good example of a metrosexual man who is known as a famous glam rocker is David Bowie -Jude Law is a famous entertainer and a style icon, generally known as Jude Law.
Project Construction
Materials/objects used
- Objects : I will use my body shell which is my fake body. This could present my dual identity.
Body shell no 1 – whole body of Yoori, in audience area.
Body shell group no 2 – Yoori’s legs, hung up as a part of lighting.
Body shell no 3 – a macho man’s body, from which Yoori will break out.
Breaking out of Man’s body shell.
After I come out of a macho man’s body shell, there will be objects that symbolise a metrosexual man - thin eye brow and moustache.
- Space/stage design/construction
I booked an observatory space for this project. I will construct this space to bring about a strange feeling to the audiences.
- Materials
I will use a tape to wrap around my body. I will present my performance by using digital media which are Projector, TV, digital video.
- Reasons for these chocies
I want to represent the fact that a lot of feminized tendency is involved in a male mind, however the degree of the feminized tendency is varied among men.
Still many people do not know about metrosexuality because this word was discovered recently. So my performance could be stimulating for audiences.
I will display one of my body shells in the audience area. While I deliver my performance, I could communicate with the audiences thorough my other self. Also the audience could interactive with me and another myself.
Aim/goal
- Symbolic/representation aim
I plan to symbolise men’s inner feminine side that is less hidden in a metrosexual man.I do not want to represent my subjective views only but open this project to different interpretations.
- Emotional aim
I would like to provoke the feminine desire in the male audiences and allow them to question their femininity.
I would like to encourage female audiences to have positive emotions about feminized men through my performance.
- Expressing statements/opinions
I booked an observatory space for this project. I will construct this space to bring about a strange feeling to the audiences.
- Materials
I will use a tape to wrap around my body. I will present my performance by using digital media which are Projector, TV, digital video.
- Reasons for these chocies
I want to represent the fact that a lot of feminized tendency is involved in a male mind, however the degree of the feminized tendency is varied among men.
Still many people do not know about metrosexuality because this word was discovered recently. So my performance could be stimulating for audiences.
I will display one of my body shells in the audience area. While I deliver my performance, I could communicate with the audiences thorough my other self. Also the audience could interactive with me and another myself.
Aim/goal
- Symbolic/representation aim
I plan to symbolise men’s inner feminine side that is less hidden in a metrosexual man.I do not want to represent my subjective views only but open this project to different interpretations.
- Emotional aim
I would like to provoke the feminine desire in the male audiences and allow them to question their femininity.
I would like to encourage female audiences to have positive emotions about feminized men through my performance.
- Expressing statements/opinions
As I have mentiond earlier, I want my performance to provke a broad range of opinions.
I hope to invite the audiences to rethink their previous opinions on metrosexuality and open their minds.
- Relationship with the audiences
I would like to communicate with the audiences through a dummy of myself placed in the audience area.
My relationship with the audiences will be a silent one created by my dual and physical presence.
This performance is open to everyone. I need to gather the feedback which would provide me with the opinions of people from different backgrounds, because some people think that metrosexuality is related only to the fashion industry or academic arts. The feedback will give me information on my audiences.
Plans for improvement
I hope to invite the audiences to rethink their previous opinions on metrosexuality and open their minds.
- Relationship with the audiences
I would like to communicate with the audiences through a dummy of myself placed in the audience area.
My relationship with the audiences will be a silent one created by my dual and physical presence.
This performance is open to everyone. I need to gather the feedback which would provide me with the opinions of people from different backgrounds, because some people think that metrosexuality is related only to the fashion industry or academic arts. The feedback will give me information on my audiences.
Plans for improvement
-Theoretical/social background
Metrosexuality is not only applicable to the fashion industry. The feminized male also linked to social issues since recently.
Metrosexuality is not only applicable to the fashion industry. The feminized male also linked to social issues since recently.
MOVEMENT or ACTION ?
Action?
Action or Movement?
Movement?
Action?
The difference between movement and action.
WHAT'S THE ACTION? 1 the process of doing something to achieve an aim. 2 a thing done. 3 the effect or influence of something such as a chemical. 4 the way in which something works or moves.
WHAT'S THE MOVEMENT?? 1 an act of moving. 2 the process of moving or the state of being moved. 3 a group of people working to advance a shared cause. 4 a series of organized actions to advance a shared cause.
PRODUCTION PROCESS
Identity - Real and fake
I am currently in the process of making a empty figure of my body to represent a fake identity. I chose to use my own body and turn it into a shell, so it is more real to my audiences, whom I will be communicating with during the performance.This is one of the ways in which I will experiment the subject of metrosxual man’s vanity, expressed by an empty human body shell.
USELESS USEFUL
GROUP PROHECT (Fashion exhibition & Performance)
http://uselessuseful.blogspot.com/
http://www.facebook.com/#/group.php?gid=64296963044&ref=ts
http://www.youtube.com/user/CAVEgroup2
Gallery space
Exhibition plan & Performance plan (Design by Yoori)
Muualla/Elsewhere
Muualla/Elsewhere (The Royal Opera House)
This performance was at Linbury Studio theatre. The show involved four different performances and I was impressed by this Muualla/Elsewhere performance. It was an interactive performance between the animated background and the performer. A human performer was involved, as well as a virtual background. This performance had strong visual effects and it strongly absorbed the audiences' attention. The background images of the space and various creatures felt real. Also, this performance lasted only fifteen minutes and I did not feel as though I was enduring a long performance and it left a stronger impression on me. If this performance was played over half an hour, it would not have had such a strong impact because there were many simple movements with hardly any narrative. In terms of its contents, I am not sure what the director was trying to say though this performance. I felt that it was a visually truly great performance, combined with excellent acting and animation and that it had succeeded as an experimental performance piece but I was somewhat disappointed with the lack of its contents. However, some of the elements in the performance have inspired me and I felt especially that the interaction between the human performer and the 2D animation background could be applied to my personal performance project on metrosexuality. I mentioned in my proposal that the core concept behind my performance was the relationship between the images of real and fake. I believe this technique of mixing real objects or a person with a skillfully constructed 2D background could achieve a strong metaphor and balance of real and unreal.
WEIGHTING FRAME 09
18/12/09
Background
This project was inspired by Alfred Hitchcock’s film, Real Window. In this film, we have four subjects, namely death, sex, fame, and insignificance. Our class was divided into four groups and each group chose one subject. Our group picked ‘sex’. At first, I wanted to create a room about death because death is easier to create a visual construction on in a given space. Death imposes many symbols and images for me. Despite these reasons, for this project I wished for a challenge which would help me discover a new dimension of design and expressions as I had not read the subject of sex in a visual context before. That is why I chose the topic of sex.
When I was first given this project, I was highly excited as this meant I can create a space combined with a performance acted out by our group, which consisted of myself and my team colleague Sandy. When the project was first initiated, we had misunderstood our tasks involved in it. We believed at first that our responsibility was merely on the designing and the construction of the space but there was no knowledge of any performance involved. Before this project I had no experience in performance and I was fascinated by this new experience. By using the space we were given to design and build, our aim was to communicate with our audiences, also involving our practised acting skills and various elements of visual expression. This required a careful planning on the synopsis, stage, interactive performance and the media material used.
This project was inspired by Alfred Hitchcock’s film, Real Window. In this film, we have four subjects, namely death, sex, fame, and insignificance. Our class was divided into four groups and each group chose one subject. Our group picked ‘sex’. At first, I wanted to create a room about death because death is easier to create a visual construction on in a given space. Death imposes many symbols and images for me. Despite these reasons, for this project I wished for a challenge which would help me discover a new dimension of design and expressions as I had not read the subject of sex in a visual context before. That is why I chose the topic of sex.
When I was first given this project, I was highly excited as this meant I can create a space combined with a performance acted out by our group, which consisted of myself and my team colleague Sandy. When the project was first initiated, we had misunderstood our tasks involved in it. We believed at first that our responsibility was merely on the designing and the construction of the space but there was no knowledge of any performance involved. Before this project I had no experience in performance and I was fascinated by this new experience. By using the space we were given to design and build, our aim was to communicate with our audiences, also involving our practised acting skills and various elements of visual expression. This required a careful planning on the synopsis, stage, interactive performance and the media material used.
18/12/09
Research
At our first meeting we thought about sex and which objects represented it and the only example we came up was condom. But we discussed our idea with Douglas O’Conndll and amongst ourselves. We had to reconsider using condoms in this project because there was a huge risk this object carried of lowering the quality of our performance.
After this meeting, I researched further about sex and how can successfully express sex in our room? The first major breakthrough of our project was the decision on using fabric for most of our stage to create the sensation of surrealism and the fantasy element sex often represents. Even at this stage, the performance side and its practicality was not planned. At the time, we were informed that the performance would last three hours and the ideas all four groups had were thought to be somewhat weaker than needed. The ideas discussed in my group was certainly not sufficient to fill three hours and this led to a long discussion between me and Sandy, but without any decision on how we would interact with our audiences.
Our other major concept behind this project is food. At the beginning of the project planning, we thought food is a strong object related to sex and some are known to enhance a sexual stimulation, also known as aphrodisiac. One example we thought to use in our performance was Sushi. The Sex Room we have created had an important underlining representation of an Asian interpretation of sex. When I knew that my project partner was to be Sandy, who is from China - I am from Korea, also an Asian country, I instantly felt strongly about involving Asian representations in our performance. I think a growing number of western people find Asian girls as mysterious and exotic and I wanted to express this impression. Sushi is Asian food and this food is widely known as aphrodisiac. This was surely a great object to be included in our Sex Room.
The next stage of decision making was on how to perform and communicate with our audiences? Our natural thought was - feeding the audiences.
In Korea, Japan and China there is a similar culture that is centred around the ideology of male dominance in our societies, which is also represented in an old Korean saying, ’Men are as high as the sky, women are as low as the ground’. This undeveloped cultural understanding is still present in many Asian cultures, including Korea and Japan. Our aim was to receive male audiences and show them over-respective gestures to highlight this concept. Our acting was unusual to this modern age and especially for London, which is a society strongly based on the absolute equality between men and women. Our performance had many similar elements to a House of Geisha. A Geisha is a group of in-house trained women in the aspects of tea-making/serving, dance, arts and music and they are seen has the most sophisticated form of entertainers for men in Japan, many of whom are married.
When we first decided we wanted to base our performance on the culture surrounding sex in Korea and China, where we have come from, it was later deemed to be impractical and there were not enough materials as widely known in London as the Japanese culture. With the help of a recent film, ‘The Memoirs of Geisha’, the Japanese idea of sex and entertainment has been broadly recognised and this made it easier for us to visually present to our international audiences in London.
Although I think overall the project was a success and our audiences have been communicated both directly and indirectly in many respects, I still believe there were a few areas that could have been improved. There were some areas of regret through which our performance was somewhat hindered.
One of the areas which I feel could have been improved further is our professionalism. I regret that our approach to the acting had lacked practice and came across as less professional, especially as we were positioned next to Fame Room where the performers had previous experiences in acting and this showed. A core element of success in this project was the impact of communication and perhaps our communication would have been a lot stronger if the acting was felt as stronger than it was on the day of the performance.
But my main concern was the positioning of our room. The Sex Room was positioned in the far left corner of the staging area and next to the Fame Room. The Fame Room Sex room had built a tall stage within its room and the audiences of this room were influenced by the height of the staging surface, whereas Sex Room was performed on the floor level according to Asian traditional dining custom. Also, other rooms involved much of standing up of the performers, which was also higher than the ground level. The problem was that this led to the audiences’ focus to climb upwards, high above the ground. When the audiences entered the Sex Room, they would have had encountered a sudden sense of calmness and their focus level would have had suddenly changed to the ground. I feared this might have created a feeling of abrupt change which could lead to a confusion and misunderstanding.
Final thoughts
All in all, we have performed successfully. Before we underwent trials after trials with many errors even when Sandy and I had the final rehearsal, we had managed to reach out to our audiences and truly communicated sex. We were very nervous about our acting skills, because if our actions were not clear, our performance would have been not professional and the audiences would also have been lost in confusion. However, when we began our show, we did our utmost best. When we invited our first audience into our room, I was excited because when we were washing her hands and fed her, she appeared very embarrassed, which was the exact reaction we had aimed for, although we were hoping for male audiences.
From this project, I have learnt how to plan and execute a successful connection with the audiences and what is the meaning of performance. I have had an eye-opening opportunity to feel the power of performance, through a performer’s point of view.
At our first meeting we thought about sex and which objects represented it and the only example we came up was condom. But we discussed our idea with Douglas O’Conndll and amongst ourselves. We had to reconsider using condoms in this project because there was a huge risk this object carried of lowering the quality of our performance.
After this meeting, I researched further about sex and how can successfully express sex in our room? The first major breakthrough of our project was the decision on using fabric for most of our stage to create the sensation of surrealism and the fantasy element sex often represents. Even at this stage, the performance side and its practicality was not planned. At the time, we were informed that the performance would last three hours and the ideas all four groups had were thought to be somewhat weaker than needed. The ideas discussed in my group was certainly not sufficient to fill three hours and this led to a long discussion between me and Sandy, but without any decision on how we would interact with our audiences.
Our other major concept behind this project is food. At the beginning of the project planning, we thought food is a strong object related to sex and some are known to enhance a sexual stimulation, also known as aphrodisiac. One example we thought to use in our performance was Sushi. The Sex Room we have created had an important underlining representation of an Asian interpretation of sex. When I knew that my project partner was to be Sandy, who is from China - I am from Korea, also an Asian country, I instantly felt strongly about involving Asian representations in our performance. I think a growing number of western people find Asian girls as mysterious and exotic and I wanted to express this impression. Sushi is Asian food and this food is widely known as aphrodisiac. This was surely a great object to be included in our Sex Room.
The next stage of decision making was on how to perform and communicate with our audiences? Our natural thought was - feeding the audiences.
In Korea, Japan and China there is a similar culture that is centred around the ideology of male dominance in our societies, which is also represented in an old Korean saying, ’Men are as high as the sky, women are as low as the ground’. This undeveloped cultural understanding is still present in many Asian cultures, including Korea and Japan. Our aim was to receive male audiences and show them over-respective gestures to highlight this concept. Our acting was unusual to this modern age and especially for London, which is a society strongly based on the absolute equality between men and women. Our performance had many similar elements to a House of Geisha. A Geisha is a group of in-house trained women in the aspects of tea-making/serving, dance, arts and music and they are seen has the most sophisticated form of entertainers for men in Japan, many of whom are married.
When we first decided we wanted to base our performance on the culture surrounding sex in Korea and China, where we have come from, it was later deemed to be impractical and there were not enough materials as widely known in London as the Japanese culture. With the help of a recent film, ‘The Memoirs of Geisha’, the Japanese idea of sex and entertainment has been broadly recognised and this made it easier for us to visually present to our international audiences in London.
Although I think overall the project was a success and our audiences have been communicated both directly and indirectly in many respects, I still believe there were a few areas that could have been improved. There were some areas of regret through which our performance was somewhat hindered.
One of the areas which I feel could have been improved further is our professionalism. I regret that our approach to the acting had lacked practice and came across as less professional, especially as we were positioned next to Fame Room where the performers had previous experiences in acting and this showed. A core element of success in this project was the impact of communication and perhaps our communication would have been a lot stronger if the acting was felt as stronger than it was on the day of the performance.
But my main concern was the positioning of our room. The Sex Room was positioned in the far left corner of the staging area and next to the Fame Room. The Fame Room Sex room had built a tall stage within its room and the audiences of this room were influenced by the height of the staging surface, whereas Sex Room was performed on the floor level according to Asian traditional dining custom. Also, other rooms involved much of standing up of the performers, which was also higher than the ground level. The problem was that this led to the audiences’ focus to climb upwards, high above the ground. When the audiences entered the Sex Room, they would have had encountered a sudden sense of calmness and their focus level would have had suddenly changed to the ground. I feared this might have created a feeling of abrupt change which could lead to a confusion and misunderstanding.
Final thoughts
All in all, we have performed successfully. Before we underwent trials after trials with many errors even when Sandy and I had the final rehearsal, we had managed to reach out to our audiences and truly communicated sex. We were very nervous about our acting skills, because if our actions were not clear, our performance would have been not professional and the audiences would also have been lost in confusion. However, when we began our show, we did our utmost best. When we invited our first audience into our room, I was excited because when we were washing her hands and fed her, she appeared very embarrassed, which was the exact reaction we had aimed for, although we were hoping for male audiences.
From this project, I have learnt how to plan and execute a successful connection with the audiences and what is the meaning of performance. I have had an eye-opening opportunity to feel the power of performance, through a performer’s point of view.
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